I was best friends with Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s brother, and my sister was best friends with his older sister. Our families were pretty close.
A friend’s wife’s daughter’s husband worked on the set of 24. I’m guessing that he met at least a few cast members.
I worked at a store where Art Buchwald’s daughter was a regular customer.
I gave customer support to Julia Child. Twice.
I went to high school with John Cusack. The most charitable thing I can think of to say about him is that he wasn’t one of my favorite people (and I did know him personally, if not very well).
I think one of the rules should be that the connections must really know each other. I have met a lot of famous people, but most of them don’t know who I am so they don’t count. To me, if your connection wouldn’t answer the phone when you call, it doesn’t count.
By my own criteria, I am one degree from a musician whose albums are always on end-of-the-year top ten lists; the head of a major movie studio; a friend who is connected to many politicians, including several also-rans in the last two presidential elections; a musician whose music appears in several hit movies; and several others. I’m sure I can get from me to any celebrity or politician in four steps or less. Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, and Whitey Bulger in 3. Louis CK, Michael Jackson (not any more, I suppose), Sarah Silverman, Adam Sandler, and hundreds of musicians and actors in 2. The funny thing is, I’m nobody. Absolutely nobody. I just happen to know a lot of connected people.
Two of my nephews play in the NFL - Mark Levoir and Joe Thomas.
My Mother double dated with Tom Laughlin.
I worked out with Hulk Hogan once when he was in town for a wrestling event.
Regards,
Shodan
I’d have to double-check, but I believe I’m five degrees away from Einstein, and hence seven from Paul Erdös. That’s using the standard for Erdös numbers, where a link is “co-authored a paper with”. The numbers would probably be smaller if I included “would pick up the phone if I called”.
I’ve met or shook hands with a bunch of fairly famous people: Elvis Presley, John F. Kennedy, Gerald Ford, Michael Jackson, Carlos Santana, Bob Marley, Robin Williams, Jackie Onassis, Bill Clinton, among others.
But I was actually friends with Patty Hanson, way back when we were dating two brothers who were in a band. I went on to (much more) boring and normal men, while Patty hooked up with Keith Richards. They now have a couple of daughters.
A friend from high school was White House Deputy Chief of Staff during the Clinton Administration, so I guess that puts me , what, 2 or 3? degrees from most of the celebrities and world leaders.
Not that it has done me any good!
Oh, and I’m close friends with Tiger Woods’ personal assistant’s sister.
Did the assistant know about Tiger rampant skirt-chasing?
My grandfather, a lawyer, spent some time once negotiating a settlement on a case with Dean Acheson. So I’m at two degrees of separation from Acheson, and three degrees from the the people in Acheson’s world - FDR, Truman, Churchill, people like that.
Closest thing to a celeb I’ve known directly was Bernard Fall, the Indochina historian, who, with his family, lived down the street from us when I was young. (Truth be told, I barely remember him; I was only 12 when he got killed by a land mine in Vietnam, and he’d spent much of the previous few years traveling to Indochina. I remember his wife and daughters better.) Since he interviewed Ho Chi Minh once, that puts me at two degrees of separation from Ho.
I knew Ayn Rand for about 18 months, back in the 60s. Rand herself knew thousands of celebrities, so they’re all 2 degrees from me.
Through her, I knew Alan Greenspan and many others.
My mother had dated Jerry Siegel, creator of Superman, in high school.
Through one of my exes, I met Stephen Sondheim.
I once had sex with a very well-known *Jeopardy! *winner.
One of my exes was the doorman at Studio 54, and knew lots of celebrities.
My chorus has performed with Bernadette Peters, Michael Feinstein, Linda Eder. and Armistead Maupin.
My high school orchestra performed with James Galway.
One of Madonna’s brothers was once a neighbor of mine.
I took violin lessons from Kurt Loebel, one of the first violinists in the Cleveland Orchestra, who over the years met many famous musicians and composers.
I went to high school with a guy who co-authored a book with Eudora Welty.
I knew artist Keith Haring.
^I take it you haven’t always lived in NE Ohio.
Just calculated my Erdos number (4) using this tool.
[ul]
[li]5 degrees from Napoleon[/li][li]4 degrees from Osama bin Laden (two ways)[/li][li]Have talked to Terry Pratchett[/li][/ul]
I have an acquaintance who punched Kurt Cobain in the face onstage after Cobain split his head open with a guitar.
I’ve met Prince Philip. He didn’t insult me: I was gutted. 
You know, it just crossed my mind that I am 2 degrees away from basically the who`s who of the 20th century.
Our family had a close relationship with Yousuf Karsh. I used to play backgammon with him. Karsh took portraits of my grandparents on at least two different times (including pictures of my grandmother in colour) my sister and my father. In fact, I have a bunch of prints of the pictures with me that need to be sorted and framed along with some letters back and forth.
Uncle Yousuf, as he liked me to call him, personally told me the story of how he got his famous picture of Churchill.
I’m a New Hampshire man. So I shook hand with most of the presidential primary candidates from about 1996-2006 (at which point I moved to DC, so it wasn’t practical to head back to NH for campaign speeches).
I’ll always be a bit annoyed at George the Younger for giving a stump speech in my high school cafeteria while I was trying to study for my geometry final. Sure, I could have left - but why should I have? I was there first, and I was cooler than him. 
BIL is a screenwriter. I’m 2 degrees from many TV/movie actors.
A freind of mine has spoken with Ángel Maturino Reséndiz, the “Railway Killer,” although I don’t think he’ll be answering the phone for either one of us.
Lucky bastard. 